Boston, Mass. - November 12, 2002 -
The Free Software Foundation (FSF) today announced that MySQL AB, the
company that develops, supports and markets the MySQL database, made
a contribution of $25,000 to the FSF to support the protection and
promotion of the GNU General Public License (GPL). The FSF incurs
over $100,000 in costs each year defending and enforcing the GPL.
MySQL is the first company to contribute generously to support this
work.

Marten Mickos, CEO of MySQL, explained the motivation for this
donation: "MySQL appreciates FSF's tireless work preserving,
protecting and promoting Free Software, diligently policing the use
of the GPL, defending GPL developers against license breaches, and
educating the world about the principles of software freedom".
Continued Mickos, "Everyone who uses Open Source and Free Software
owes the FSF more than a debt of gratitude. We hope that our
contribution will encourage other individuals and vendors who believe
in and rely on the GPL to support the FSF any way they can."

MySQL's gift supports FSF's GPL Compliance Lab, an initiative that has
existed informally since 1992, but was formalized by FSF late last
year. The goal of the Compliance Lab is to help enforce the GPL
license so that GPL-violating competitors cannot take advantage of
companies that do comply with the license.

According to Bradley M. Kuhn, FSF's Executive Director: "FSF sees the
defense of the license as fundamental to the work of the Free
Software Movement. Even though FSF is strapped for resources, when
MySQL needed help in their enforcement of the GPL, FSF lent its
expertise. We are committed to doing this work regardless of our
funding woes. We have always seen the need for an impartial party to
enforce GPL. We are elated that MySQL shares our view and is willing
to support our work financially."

Ideally, to run at full capacity, FSF's GPL Compliance Lab would
require a budget of $200,000 per year. When the Compliance Lab was
formalized, FSF had hoped that many companies that benefit greatly
from Free Software would recognize its importance and help pay for
the costs of this service. FSF hopes that this show of support will
encourage other companies to come forward.

In 1992, when FSF was working informally to enforce GPL, there were
just one or two violations each year. Today, FSF handles and resolves
-- through diplomatic negotiation -- at least fifty GPL violations
each year. All indications are that these numbers will continue to
grow indefinitely.

About the GNU GPL:

FSF created the GNU General Public License (GNU GPL) in 1989 and
periodically publishes updated versions of that license. Today,
GPL is the most common Free Software license, used for over 50
percent of all known Free Software. Unlike most copyright
agreements that are designed to take away users' freedoms, the GPL
guarantees users' rights to share and change Free Software. Many
companies, including MySQL AB, IBM and HP have profitable business
units centered around these freedoms.

The GPL is seen as a serious threat by many proprietary software
companies whose licenses aim to take these freedoms from users.
All the while, FSF continues to defend the GNU GPL against both PR
and legal attacks and diligently works on version 3 (GPLv3) of the
license (the first new version in 12 years). GPLv3 will address
new issues of freedom for users and programmers that were unknown
at the time of the 1991 version 2 publication. No date for public
draft distribution of GPLv3 has been set, but it is expected in the
first half of 2003. An early draft of a few GPLv3 provisions was
released earlier this year as part of the Affero General Public
License.